


Boy, Give Your Heart To Me

by Mackem



Category: Critical Role (Web Series) RPF
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Polyamory, Roleplay, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 12:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18142385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mackem/pseuds/Mackem
Summary: “I walk up to the portal,” he says firmly, turning to Matt. Matt meets his gaze, eyes unblinking.“Do you go through?”Travis grins. “Fuckyeah!”An expression of sheer delight spreads across Matt’s face. “All right,” he murmurs, his voice low and soft as he looks at Travis. Then he blinks, as though coming out of a reverie, and his gaze turns to the rest of the group. “The seven of you watch as the hulking body of your barbarian friend passes with ease through the portal which has so inexorably kept the rest of you out. And with that…” he says, grinning wickedly, “Travis, would you join me in the kitchen?”





	Boy, Give Your Heart To Me

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in December 2017, and finally I am free. 
> 
> Look, I don't know if anyone else even ships Matt and Travis, but the dynamic between the two of them - Travis pushing, flirting, always delighted by Matt's storytelling, and then even more delighted whenever Matt pulls the rug out from under him by flirting back... oof. I cannot resist that kind of thing, man. This is my take on what definitely didn't actually happen when Grog met that gorgeous nymph pre-stream, and I have used it to torture my pal Ruth for over a year now. I hope anybody who has an interest in this enjoys it, and if nothing else, I can leave my friend alone now!
> 
> Obviously I don't own anybody involved in this, and I'm not saying it's true or real in any way. Enthusiastic consenting polyamory all the way. Any mistakes are all my own. Title is from "Come to Me (Song of the Water Nymph)" by Inkubus Sukkubus.

“All right, that brings us to Ashley. What would you like to do?”

 

“Uh…” Travis strokes the dachshund in his lap as he watches Ashley flip excitedly through her pages. They’ve been playing for three hours by now, but none of them are showing signs of tiring. Not even Matt, despite him having spent the majority of those hours describing the action with what Travis has now come to know is his usual painstaking detail. Nothing ever seems to slip by him, even with all of them talking at once. 

 

Ashley jabs at her character sheet and gives Matt a fierce grin. “I wanna guiding bolt this fucker!” she declares, to raucous hollering. Matt chuckles in response.

 

“All right. Go ahead and make a ranged spell attack for me.” 

 

Ashley hesitates; she’s still relatively new to the game, and the terms don’t always come to her right away, not that Travis can claim to know all the ins and outs yet. He leans closer to help but Laura leaps in before him, crowding into Ashley’s space to point out the stat she needs from her other side. Ashley sends her dice clattering across the table and beams when it settles.

 

“Eighteen! So that makes it… uh…”

 

“A natural eighteen hits on its own, that’s fine, no need to add your modifier,” Matt says smoothly, wearing a reassuring smile. He’s never once made them feel stupid when they struggle to remember rules, or what to add to rolls, or which dice is which, and Travis is absurdly pleased to realise the sheer depth of his patience. He’s pretty sure that a huge amount of his enjoyment of this game comes from Matt making sure that nothing gets too dull or stuffy, even while gently ensuring everything happens according to the rules. 

 

Travis has no sphere of reference, but both Taliesin and Liam have told him and the rest of the newbies, at length, that Matt is the best dungeon master they’ve ever played under. Matt had turned a decidedly adorable shade of red and brushed off their compliments with a pleased, sheepish grin that Travis couldn’t look away from. Laura had jabbed him with an elbow to the side and had flashed him a knowing smirk when Travis finally tore his eyes from his DM. She knows him too well.

 

“So I roll… four of these?” Ashley says, her tone questioning as she holds up what Travis keeps reminding himself is a d6, not just ‘a dice’. Matt nods, full of encouragement, and both Laura and Taliesin scramble to find more to round out the one Ashley has. They bounce in front of her, and Travis watches her adding eagerly. “Sixteen!” she announces.

 

Matt doesn’t hesitate. “How do you want to do this?” he asks smoothly, and the table erupts into cheers. Charlie whines in Travis’ hold at the racket, and he bends to scruff apologetically at his head as Ashley punches the air beside him. 

 

“I want it to fuckin’ explode!” she bellows. Charlie expresses his displeasure with a whimper, trying to burrow into Travis’ belly, so he hunches protectively over him even as one hand clutches at Ashley’s.

 

“That’s my monstah!” he rumbles, slipping into the deep voice he’s hesitantly begun to think of as Grog’s. Despite their profession, they’re all weirdly self-conscious about speaking in character, and it still doesn’t always feel natural, though after three hours of play and multiple mimosas it doesn’t take much forcing. The exception is Matt, who seems to have no trouble producing a myriad of voices in every session. Liam’s been watching him with a smile which Travis suspects means he’s going to be hired in whatever project Liam directs next without having to audition. 

 

“Monstah!” Ashley echoes, beaming at him and waving their twined hands in the air. Travis can’t help but grin in return; considering he only met her in their second session, it already feels like no effort at all to roleplay as her family-and-best-bud. Ashley kicks all kinds of ass, and she’s a sweetheart along with it. Travis knows himself well enough to realise that he’s smitten, and, judging from the fond smile on her face, that Laura is no better off.

 

“So with that,” Matt says, raising his voice to speak over their chatter, “you tighten your hand around your holy symbol and fix your eyes on the basilisk, shrugging off the petrification, and aim your mace in its direction, and a burst of divine light crackles from it, arcing across the clearing and slamming into its body via the gaping wound your companions have carved into its ribs. You see its entire form tighten -” Matt’s own body freezes as he mimes along with his words, by now speaking into rapt silence, “ – as the radiant energy of Sarenrae clenches around the heaving heart in its chest cavity, and you see that glow build and build, eventually shining through its dull grey skin like the sun behind stormclouds, until eventually -” His hands mime an explosion as he produces an appropriate noise, which is drowned out as they all holler in delight.

 

“That’s my girl!” Sam coos, theatrically batting his eyelashes at Ashley. “I knew you could do it! So strong, so beautiful, so…. covered with basilisk guts, probably,” he finishes, getting laughs from around the table as he shrugs. “It suits you, though! It looks fierce, like war paint.”

 

“Thank you, Scanlan,” Ashley laughs in return. “I, uh, I pat him on the cheek. And I make sure I rub some of the guts in,” she adds quickly as Sam opens his mouth, and giggles as his pantomime leer melts into exaggerated disgust.

 

“I want to loot the body,” Laura says, seemingly having no trouble falling into in her Vex accent; she’d been the first of them to adopt a voice. Travis had been enamoured with Vex from the moment she first drawled the word, ‘darling’.

 

“And I want… can I like… take some of its claws and teeth and stuff? Maybe it’s skin?” Marisha asks, her own tone hesitant as she looks at her character sheet. She’s still not quite comfortable with this, Travis thinks; or, perhaps, with _them_. She knew hardly any of them when she arrived at their first session, despite dating Matt and being fast friends with Taliesin, and while Ashley joined the session after that in similar circumstances, she seems less inclined to fret about the social aspect. Marisha, conversely, has been tentative in her interactions with them. 

 

“Good idea,” Travis encourages immediately, reaching for that deep rumble , and grins when she looks up at him with a shy, pleased smile. “Are you gonna make, like, a terrifying tooth-and-claw crown, like…” He waves his fingers above his head and bares his teeth at her as she grins.

 

“Maybe!” she nods. “I mean, that’d be pretty dope, right? Might freak the hell out of the next monster we come across?”

 

“And if we come across anyone scared shitless and in need of help, I’m sure the sight of you covered in monstrous teeth will be _super_ reassuring,” Sam points out with a grin. Marisha dissolves into giggles, and Sam follows suit as Travis merely waggles his fingers more insistently in response.

 

“Or I guess I could make some potion ingredients or some shit from it,” Marisha concedes, aiming this at Matt, who nods.

 

“You can certainly try,” he offers serenely. “Make a nature check for me.”

 

“I’ll assist with this,” Taliesin adds, leaning close to Marisha on her other side.

 

“And I want to help my sister search for loot,” Liam says, earning himself a suspicious glare from Laura.

 

“You mean you want to see if you can steal the best things for yourself,” she accuses, biting back a smile as Liam gives her an oh-so-innocent ‘who, me?’ look. “Whatever it is, I saw it first!”

 

“Maybe you did, maybe not,” Matt interrupts. “Both of you, give me investigation checks.”

 

“While they’re doing that,” Travis says, ignoring the bickering that ensues in favour of getting Matt’s attention. “Is the weird wavy thing I saw before that ugly bastard attacked us still there?”

 

“Indeed it is.” How Matt can pick up the threads of a story amidst yelling about numbers is frankly astonishing. “Do you want to get closer to it?”

 

“Yeah, I stride right up to it, stopping only to admire my Pikey’s amazing and bloody handiwork on the way,” Travis supplies, grinning as Ashley butts her head against his shoulder gently.

 

“So you walk across the clearing, giving the basilisk corpse a look over with the eye of a true master of carnage as Keyleth and Percy remove a few of its teeth, and you give Pike a thumbs up,” Matt grins. “Then turn your attention to the hazy anomaly hanging in the air before you. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. When you look around the side of it, you can see it seems to be only a hair’s breadth in width, hanging in the air with no visible support.”

 

“And it’s swirling?” Travis asks, thinking back to the description Matt had provided before a basilisk lumbered out of the treeline.

 

“Not quite swirling,” Matt corrects gently. He holds up his hand, waving it sinuously through the air. “More waving, like this. Like the horizon on a hot day. And the view through it… is not the view of the clearing behind it.”

 

Travis smiles, revelling in the mystery. _God_ , this weird math game is surprisingly thrilling. “What can I see?”

 

“It’s not exactly clear,” Matt provides. “The whole thing is shimmering, like a mirage, and it’s almost hard for you to look at, as though it’s dodging your attention. But what you can make out seems verdant, full of lush plant life, with a pool of still, dark water.”

 

Travis’ eyebrows rise. Matt had specifically told them that the forest they’re currently in is coated in a layer of snow, the plants withered and waiting for spring. He notes this down carefully, and asks, “Does it strike me as a portal?”

 

“Roll an intelligence check for me,” Matt asks, and Travis groans as Ashley laughs at him.

 

“Just watch, this’ll be outstanding,” he tells her.

 

“You never know!” Ashley says encouragingly, and pats his arm as he rolls. “See! Eleven’s not bad!”

 

“Minus two,” Travis reminds her with a chuckle. He turns his eyes on Matt. “Nine total.”

 

“So with that… it’s hard to tell,” Matt hedges, before shrugging casually and producing an expression Travis realises is his impression of pondering Grog. “You’ve definitely never seen this kinda thing before. It’s like, kinda cool and kinda freaking you out at the same time. It seems like a door, only it’s not a door? You can look through it and it looks somewhere else, but it’s just like, hanging in the air?”

 

“Right, so, definitely something Grog knows nothing about, and something that was guarded by a big ol’ nasty beast as if to keep people away from something mysterious and possibly dangerous,” Travis says, in his own voice. Matt nods.

 

“You could conclude that.”

 

Travis grins, and drops his voice into Grog’s. “I push my head right inside it!” he declares, and revels in the way Matt dissolves into laughter.

 

“Grog!” Ashley protests, even as she laughs. “No! What’re you doing?”

 

“What do I see?” Travis asks eagerly, leaning forward in his seat. Charlie wriggles around to lick his neck, and Ashley snakes a hand behind Travis’ arm to pet him softly. 

 

“Okay, so, you push your head through the portal, enduring a brief swirling sensation that leaves your head dizzy,” Matt says, coming closer to press his hands on the table and lean closer to Travis. There’s a tell-tale shine in his eyes, the one he gets when he knows something exciting is approaching. Travis meets his gaze, transfixed. “And it’s super weird, because as soon as that settles, you realise that it literally is just like you’ve leaned your head and shoulders into a whole other place. You can’t hear your friends any more – Pike was cut off mid-word as you leaned inside,” he explains, eyes darting to Ashley, who purses her lips in growing worry. “As you glance down at the ground, you realise you can’t see your lower body.”

 

“I’m just a head pokin’ into a new place with nothing underneath it?” Travis asks, glee growing inside him as Matt nods. “Like fuckin’ Harry Potter wearing his invisibility cloak?”

 

“Almost exactly like that! If Harry were an eight feet tall goliath,” Matt laughs. “And it doesn’t hurt, it really is just like… your body is in one place, and your head and shoulders are in another.”

 

“Wait, what’s happening?” Laura asks, drawn from her squabbles with Liam. “Grog’s head is off?!”

 

“No! Well, kinda?” Ashley supplies. “He stuck his head through a portal!”

 

“It tingles,” Travis supplies authoritatively to the group at large as their attention turns to him. “Like a massage in a house of ladies before you get to the fun stuff.”

 

“Grog and I know all the best houses of ladies,” Sam grins. “We can probably get you a discount if you drop our names.”

 

“So is it all green?” Travis asks Matt, over the general laughter. “Or were my senses being deceived?”

 

“No, it is indeed a glade of lush plant life,” Matt explains, pacing around as he talks. He does that; gets excited about the image he’s painting for them and begins to move around, as though literally walking them through it. It’s ridiculously endearing, and Travis yet again finds his eyes glued to him. “With your vision now unobscured by the haziness of the portal, you find yourself looking out over towering trees, forming a thick forest canopy so high above your head that even you have to crane your neck to see it. There’s a dense carpet of grass beneath your – where your feet _would_ be if you’d gone through,” he corrects himself with a grin as Travis smirks at him. “And you can see that vines are wound inextricably around the massive tree trunks, dotted with white budding flowers. Across from you there’s a still, deep pool, the water as dark and smooth as obsidian, but…” Matt pauses, tilting his head thoughtfully. “You get the impression that something beneath the surface is watching you.”

 

Travis’ eyes widen, along with his grin. “With evil intent?” he asks.

 

“No…” Matt says slowly. “There’s a feeling of uncertainty, and a definite wariness, but… for all you felt as though the portal was trying to shrug off your gaze, now that you’ve at least partially breached it… you feel a certain curiosity in regard to your presence.”

 

Travis grins excitedly, his eyebrows waggling, but Ashley speaks before he can react. “Grog!” she calls, cupping her hands around her mouth. “What can you see?”

 

“I can see -” Travis begins.

 

“- you can’t hear her,” Matt reminds him.

 

“Oh! I can’t hear you!” Travis hollers back through laughter, and everyone bursts into giggles of their own.

 

“Then I guess when he doesn’t answer, I grab onto his arms and try to pull him back through,” Ashley says, determinedly, before she smiles suddenly. “Wait, can I even reach his arms?”

 

“You cannot!” Matt supplies.

 

“Then I… guess I grab however high I can reach,” Ashley smirks, to general delight. Travis uses the arm not holding Charlie to give her a triumphant squeeze around the shoulders. 

 

“All right,” Matt says after a pause, a smirk of his own tugging at the corner of his lips. “In which case, you briefly crouch, feel the power build in your gnomish calves, and leap as high as you possibly can… and grab onto his thighs,” he announces, and Ashley groans in mock-disappointment.

 

“I’m gonna smack him on his butt until he comes back through,” she says, prodding Travis in the side to see him wriggle.

 

“Hey!” he protests, flapping at her hand in return. “Not able to see what’s going on, when I feel her little fingers pokin’ at my bum I come back through the portal and try to shake her off.”

 

“Okay,” Matt grins. “So you emerge through the portal, your head and shoulders popping back into this domain, while doing a little shimmy to try and de-gnome yourself,” he says, turning away from them and shaking his own backside to demonstrate. Travis’ eyes drop treacherously, and for a moment he can do nothing but breathe through surprised stab of heat that spreads through his body as everyone else laughs along. After a moment his eyes dart to Laura, feeling the force of her salacious smirk burning into him; she waggles her eyebrow and winks, and Travis whistles loudly, triggering appreciative whoops as Matt ducks his head and gives one last giggly shimmy. He meets eyes with Travis as he turns around, and Travis is sure the sudden flush to his cheeks can be explained away as the result of too many cocktails, or too much laughter, or… or any number of things. “Okay, all right, well, Pike, make a strength saving throw,” Matt chuckles, his hands fussing to neaten his hair.

 

“Saving throw…” Ashley murmurs, her finger tracing over the various columns on her sheet. She taps at a number – it’s higher than Travis expected, for a gnome, but Pike _is_ his little badass – and rolls. “Aww!” she grumbles. “Six!”

 

“And with that, your fingers lose purchase against Grog’s grey flesh, and you find yourself launched across the clearing, the breath knocked from you as you land,” Matt says. Ashley produces a suitably breathless ‘oof’ and Travis yells in dismay, his mind forced back into the game.

 

“Pike!” he wails. “I go over to her, and I pick her up and I dust her off!”

 

“It’s fine, Grog!” Ashley laughs, then turns to Matt, who is watching with a benevolent smile. “Is it fine?”

 

“You’re mostly unscathed,” Matt supplies. “Maybe a little muddier than you’d like, but unhurt.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Pike!” Travis goes on, stifling a grin in favour of an anguished expression as he pulls Ashley against his chest. He can feel her laughter huffing at his neck and Charlie nuzzling between them as the group crack up. “My little Pikey-poo!”

 

“I’m fine, Grog!” she protests, pushing at him and aiming the brightest of sunshine smiles his way. “That was kinda fun! And I shouldn’t have startled you. But I was worried about you! Your head disappeared!”

 

“I know! I have become a master wizard,” Travis declares grandly, and releases Ashley in favour of waving his hand around as though wielding a wand. “I have discovered a…thing! A thing of great magicks!”

 

“What _is_ it?” Laura asks, leaning around Ashley to give him a dubious look. “Is it dangerous?”

 

“Nah, it’s cool,” Travis says immediately. “It’s like a door but it’s not a door.”

 

“Oh, I know this one,” Taliesin says, resting his chin on his hand and raising an aloof eyebrow at Travis. “The answer is ‘a window’, yes?” Travis bursts into laughter, delighted when Taliesin drops the indifferent Percy act and cackles along with him.

 

“Okay, while Grog is playing riddles with Freddie, I want to do the same thing he did,” Liam says, his eyes intent on Matt even as he fiddles with his beer.

 

“You want to lean your head into the portal?” Matt asks, and Liam nods.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Wait, wait!” Laura protests. “What if it’s dangerous?” Liam just grins at her in return, eyebrows waggling, and she gives him a reluctantly amused look. “Right, okay, well, if you’re going to do that, I’m going to keep hold of your hand, so I can pull you back if anything seems to be going wrong.”

 

“Like a half-elf daisy chain,” Liam grins, taking hold of Laura’s hand. He turns his attention back to Matt. “So I very carefully lean my head into the portal, holding tight to my sister. Do I see the same thing the big man did?”

 

“You do not,” Matt says, eyes sparkling as rapt silence falls. “Because when you try to push your head through, you meet with intense resistance, as though the portal itself is refusing to allow your entry.”

 

“What!” Gasps rise from around the table as eyes widen. Liam picks up his d20 instinctively. “What do I need to roll to try and break through the resistance? Strength?”

 

“Nothing,” says Matt smoothly. “No matter what you try, no matter what pressure you apply, pushing against the force until your muscles shake, you cannot breach the portal.”

 

“So, wait, is Vax just persistently and uselessly pressing his forehead against an immovable force?” Sam asks, cracking everyone up. Liam wilts against him in glee.

 

“That is the story of my life,” he laughs, throwing his free arm around Sam to cuddle into him. Sam ruffles his hair, giggling.

 

“When I see my brother failing, I move closer and prod at the portal,” Laura says, eyes narrowed as she looks to Matt. “Do _I_ get through?”

 

“You do not,” says Matt again, grinning at her. She produces a disgruntled noise.

 

“Grog!” she protests. “What did you do? You broke it!”

 

“What!” Travis rumbles, brows drawing together. He aims a petulant look at his wife over Ashley’s head. “I didn’t! All I did was look inside, like this! And I push past ‘em and poke my hand at it again,” he adds, aiming this at Matt, who nods.

 

“Your hand passes through the portal without issue,” he says, a smile tugging at his lips as Travis smirks at Laura.

 

“Clearly, Grog wasn’t joking,” Sam says, his face carefully straight. “He has become a magic practitioner of no small prowess. Grog, tell us about this portal you have summoned. To which wondrous lands does it lead? What fabulous treasures were revealed to you from within?”

 

“There was a pond,” Travis supplies, and Sam nods sagely as the group laughs around them.

 

“Mmhmm, uh-huh. Fair enough. Matt, assume that we all tried to go through the portal,” says Sam. “Do any of us get anywhere?”

 

“Not one of you manage to breach the portal’s magic,” Matt says, his eyes darting between all of them before settling on Travis. “It seems that whatever lies before it is only interested in Grog.”

 

“As is only right,” Travis preens. 

 

“Grog, this is obviously a trap,” Laura says, always the voice of reason. “You can’t just go in alone!”

 

“Yeah, what if something happens? What if we lose you?” Ashley asks, her hand on his shoulder. Marisha makes a considering noise from down the table.

 

“I feel like if any of us would be okay on their own, it’s Grog,” she offers. “He’s pretty badass.”

 

“Damn right I am!” Travis blusters. “Look, I’ll be fine. If things get bad in there I’ll run straight out! No worries!”

 

“I would like to insight check that,” Taliesin calls, and Travis laughs in response. 

 

“All right,” Matt says, pointing at both. “Percy, roll an insight check, Grog, roll deception or persuasion, your choice.”

 

“That’s an eighteen from me,” Taliesin offers.

 

Travis peers at his sheet, rolls, and pulls his shoulders up with haughty dignity as he meets Taliesin’s gaze. “Three,” he announces, and Taliesin smirks.

 

“Grog,” Matt asks. “If you face danger in the portal, what will your response be?”

 

Travis grins. “I’ll draw my greatsword and go to town.” 

 

Taliesin points at him as everyone yells. “I knew it!” he says triumphantly.

 

“Do you plan to act on this insight into Grog, Percy?” Matt asks, and Taliesin gestures dismissively.

 

“Oh, god no. I’ll just stand here smug in the knowledge that I see through him,” he shrugs. Laura groans.

 

“Travis, you’re gonna have to roll a new character,” she whines, all traces of Vex dropping away in her anguish, but he flaps at her behind Ashley.

 

“I walk up to the portal,” he says firmly, turning to Matt. Matt meets his gaze, eyes unblinking.

 

“Do you go through?”

 

Travis grins. “ _Fuck_ yeah!” 

 

An expression of sheer delight spreads across Matt’s face. “All right,” he murmurs, his voice low and soft as he looks at Travis. Then he blinks, as though coming out of a reverie, and his gaze turns to the rest of the group. “The seven of you watch as the hulking body of your barbarian friend passes with ease through the portal which has so inexorably kept the rest of you out. And with that…” he says, grinning wickedly, “Travis, would you join me in the kitchen?”

 

“What!” Ashley protests at the same time as Laura smacks the table.

 

“We can’t see?!”

 

“Well, that’s fair,” Taliesin says smoothly. “We aren’t there, after all.”

 

“It might be fair, but it’s not cool,” Marisha grumbles, pouting at her boyfriend as Travis deposits Charlie in Ashley’s lap and edges out from behind the table with his equipment, well aware he’s radiating an aura of smugness.

 

“And as everyone knows, we only play D&D because it’s cool,” Sam grins. Marisha gives him the finger, but she’s laughing at the same time.

 

“Think of this as being an extended whisper. You can use this time to have a break,” Matt suggests. “We probably won’t be too long? Maybe?”

 

“Have fun, Grog!” Liam calls, and Laura clutches at him.

 

“Don’t die, beebee!” she pleads.

 

Travis holds the door open for Matt, smiling as he ducks past him with an excited grin, then dumps his notepad and dice on the table. He presses his ear to the door and cups his hand theatrically over his ear, chuckling when Matt snorts.

 

“I’m sure we can trust them,” Matt says loudly, with a pointed look towards the door. Travis reaches out to give it a thump, and both laugh as a scuffling noise comes from behind it, then footsteps scurry away from them. Matt then claps his hands together, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “So!”

 

“So,” Travis echoes, his eyes fixed on Matt. He pulls a chair out from the table, automatically moving to seat himself, before he decides to lean into Matt’s style and physically play along. He plants his feet. “I walk through the portal,” he offers.

 

Matt nods, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he takes Travis in. “It looks much as it did before,” he says, his voice softer now he’s speaking to an audience of one. He looks around the kitchen calculatingly, as though picturing the glade around them, and backs away across the room. Travis’ eyes follow him as he moves. “The shouts of your friends are instantly muted as you step away from them, and all you can hear is the quiet rustling of a soft breeze through leaves, canopied high above you and blocking out the sky. There are the remains of a building around the glade,” he supplies, sweeping his arms around Travis’ kitchen as though marking them out. “Long since fallen down, and reclaimed by moss and vines. It’s not large, but the columns remind you of something less like an abode and more like… a temple?” he suggests.

 

“This is probably a stupid question,” Travis tries, already anticipating the answer, “but do I recognise which god it belongs to?”

 

“Make a religion check,” Matt offers, and smiles as Travis rolls, then shakes his head with a chuckle at the pitiful result. “You, Grog, are not a religious man. You’d almost be hard pressed to recognise the symbols at the temple back in Westruun, let alone here, in an unfamiliar place.”

 

“Right,” Travis chuckles.

 

“So you see the remains of a long-fallen temple,” Matt continues. “And whilst it might once have been the focus of the glade, the pool at the centre of it now draws your attention. What little light there is – and there is some, dim and low enough that you get the feeling dusk must be falling, even if you can’t see the sky – this evening light shines on the pond and it almost seems to soak it in, lying so still it’s like looking at obsidian glass.”

 

Travis nods as he falls silent, still watching Matt, who keeps his distance across the room. He moves forward a few paces, and clears his throat pointedly. “I step forward,” he says, “And… I say, hello?” he offers quizzically. “Do I see anyone?”

 

“Make a perception check,” Matt says softly, and Travis scoops up his dice. It clatters across the table, the sound oddly loud in the hushed atmosphere that has built between them.

 

Travis arches an eyebrow at the result. “Seventeen?” 

 

Matt nods. “Okay. Your eyes rove over your new surroundings, surveying the area and trying to pick out whatever it was that seemed to be so curious about you when you were looking in earlier, and from the corner of your eye, you see movement in the pond,” he explains. Travis watches as he ducks behind their breakfast bar, disappearing from view for a moment before he theatrically peeks above it, so only his eyes are visible. “As you turn towards it, you catch a glimpse of what seems to be a dark head of hair, and two wide, curious eyes, the colour of thunderclouds, before you hear a gasp as whoever it is realises you’ve caught sight of them, and they vanish,” he explains, hiding once again.

 

“Oh!” Travis rumbles, his voice dropping back into Grog’s deep tones. He takes a step towards where he imagines the pond to begin, trying to feel his way into this. It’s surprisingly easy to do; Matt has always been eager to encourage their attempts at roleplay, and Travis can almost see the scene around them, superimposed over his kitchen. “Uh. Hello? I… came through your weird door…” he offers, biting back a smile.

 

Matt’s voice floats from behind the counter once again. “For a long, long moment, you hear nothing. There is no movement, and no response. …Until,” he breathes, and the top of his head reappears. This time, Travis does not hide his smile.

 

“There you are,” he says, keeping his voice softer than Grog would usually speak. “I thought I saw you! You were watchin’ me, right?”

 

“I was,” Matt responds, but it isn’t his own voice. It’s breathier, and softer, yet wary, and he does not rise up to reveal himself. “So few find their way to my glade, that when you appeared, I… could not fight my curiosity.”

 

“I see,” Travis says, keeping his voice mild. He starts to move forward, but stills in place when Matt ducks back down. He raises his hands with fingers spread, trying for the first time in the entire campaign to seem non-threatening. “I hope I’m not unwelcome in – in your glade?”

 

Matt’s head reappears. He remains silent for a long moment, eyes fixed on Travis even as they dart curiously over his features, finally moving from his open hands to his face. Eventually, he rises enough to show his entire head, and Travis makes sure to remain still. He smiles shortly. “You are welcome,” he offers, his tone guarded. “You would not have been able to enter were you not.”

 

“Like my friends,” Travis suggests. “They couldn’t get through. Was that your doin’? You don’t want them here?”

 

Matt wrinkles his nose. “I control this place. I am bound to it, and it to me. I choose who may enter, at least those who enter the Feywild through that doorway,” he says dismissively, but his eyes are gleaming. “Your companions do not interest me.”

 

“Are you saying I _do_?” Travis asks in his own voice, the words leaving his lips before he can consider how loaded they are. If he could shove them back into his mouth, he would do so in an instant. Matt seems startled, his eyes widening and a flush suffusing his cheeks, before his features morph into a tender expression that Travis finds he cannot look at for longer than a moment. His eyes hastily find his feet and hides his own embarrassed blush with a hand rubbing his face, the rasp of stubble deafening in the silence as he swallows past the sudden dryness in his mouth. “Uh, said Grog. That was definitely Grog saying that,” he says sheepishly, before Matt can reply. Laura’s gonna have a real good laugh when he tells her just how smooth he was.

 

“All right,” Matt says, after a pause, a fond smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth. He clears his throat, stealing Travis’ gaze once more, and speaks as he slowly rises to his feet. “You see her rise from the otherwise still water at that point, her form breaching the liquid as though she’s climbing stairs you can’t see, and when she is fully free, she stands on the surface as though it were solid. She walks towards you,” he explains, his voice dropping into a low, entrancing murmur as he does just that, circling around the counter to head slowly towards Travis. “And you realise that she is not human, nor any other race you’ve seen before. She has the form of a beautiful humanoid woman, completely nude and entirely unashamed of it, her smooth skin the colour of water, and her dark hair hangs down her back after she carelessly wrings it out,” he says, miming just that with his own soft hair. “You find your eye drawn to drops running in rivulets down her shoulders, her arms… her breasts,” he supplies. He smiles as Travis’ eyes move helplessly with his words, and he throws his shoulders back. “She does not stop you looking. In fact, she stands proudly before you, her own eyes tracing over your features, following the tracks of your tattoos, focusing on the curve of your bicep, then dropping lower… looking at you as you look at her,” he finishes, his voice warm and enticing as it washes over Travis. “And you hear her say… if you did not interest me, you would not be before me now.”

 

Travis breathes out sharply, which does nothing to dissipate the sharp stab of exhilaration low in his belly. Matt is all but weaving a spell over him with his words; he feels as though the rest of the world has faded away, taking with it his self-consciousness and leaving Matt the centre of his focus. The atmosphere suddenly feels charged, loaded with a spark of possibility which crackles between the two of them. He may just have revealed far more of himself than he wanted to, and he knows damn well that he’s probably overstepping the mark, but he’s desperately curious to see just what could come from that spark if he adds fuel to its fire. Besides, it’s _fun_ to play with Matt, even if all it gets him is blue balls.

 

He swallows, and allows his instincts to take over as his heart pounds in giddy excitement. He drops first his eyes, then to one knee before Matt, who arches an eyebrow in surprise. “I am honoured that you think me worthy, my lady,” he mumbles, relaxing fractionally as his attempts to play along produce a pleased grin from Matt. “Even before you met me.”

 

“I was watching,” Matt responds, indicating the kitchen door; Travis’ mind’s eye superimposes a wavering, mirage-like portal to their forest clearing over it, adding curious, staring images of characters who mostly look like his friends. He pictures a smaller version of Ashley sitting to the side of the portal, eyes fixed on it as a similarly-reduced Sam tries to distract her with outrageous flirtation, then adds a younger, leaner Liam off to the side, still wearing his thick-framed glasses but sharpening knives with a grimace on his face as he waits impatiently. “As you fought that creature. You are very powerful,” he adds, his eyes moving down to Travis’ biceps, and he shamelessly flexes them with a fake yawn that leaves Matt fighting back laughter, but Travis notices his cheeks growing steadily rosier.

 

“Oh, you saw?” Travis says, not bothering to hide his delight as Matt struggles to compose himself. Travis could not describe himself as the subtlest in his affections; when he’s into people, he can’t help but show it, no matter how ridiculous it makes him look. He knows damn well he’s been mooning over Matt since the moment he met him, entranced with his sleek hair and lithe body and sharp mind, and he _also_ knows that everyone else realised ages ago, and have been waiting for him to make a move whilst practically eating popcorn. He’s content to let them wait, for numerous reasons, not least of which is Marisha – the two of them seem to have A Thing with Taliesin, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to her being happy for Travis to make moves on her boyfriend, and he’s not sure their friendship is at the point of an open discussion about the matter – but seeing Matt affected by him is definitely not bad for his ego. He lets himself drink it in for a moment, then pointedly reminds himself Matt is roleplaying right now and moves the hell on. “Did you like it? Is violence your thing?” 

 

Matt shakes his head wordlessly for a moment, before clearing his throat. “Not precisely. I wasn’t watching for the sport,” he responds, keeping his voice light. He holds his hand out to Travis in a delicate gesture, and adds, “I was drawn to you, somehow. It felt right that you be able to come see me. I feel as though fate led you to me. And…”

 

Travis takes the outstretched hand with exaggerated care, and lets Matt tug him upright. They are standing mere inches apart now, their hands still linked, and Travis finds himself struggling to look away from the intense blue of Matt’s eyes. “And?” he echoes, and Matt lets a coy smile spread across his face.

 

“And you are such a beautiful creature, that I wanted to see more of you,” he murmurs, trailing a finger over Travis’ hand, swirling designs over the back of it and along his forearm. Travis’ breath catches, and his skin tingles beneath the barely-there ghost of Matt’s touch. He ducks his head as he finds himself stammering in surprise, his cheeks flushed while Matt laughs softly, his fingers continuing their slow trace over his arm.

 

“No, I – _I’m_?” Travis manages to stutter out, half-laughing as he shoves his free hand through his own short hair. “You – you flatter me, my lady. I’m – _you_ – I’m not so good at talkin’,” he mumbles, trying for a laugh, and thumbs back towards the door-cum-portal. “My friend, Scanlan, he’s better at this, you prob’ly want him – I could get ‘im?” he offers. He falls silent as the long fingers moving lightly over his arm rise to press over his lips, startling him into raising his eyes. He sees Matt smiling indulgently at him.

 

He drops the breathy voice for a moment, but his voice is no less soft for morphing into his own. “She stands before you, and you get the impression that she’s enamoured with your sudden shyness. Then she stands on her tiptoes, and rests her slim hands on your shoulders,” Matt says, doing just that. He then steps closer, moving into Travis’ space, and smiles in satisfaction as Travis instinctively takes a step back, then another, as Matt guides him backwards across his kitchen. He pauses as he backs into the chair he pulled out earlier, but Matt moves onward, pushing him down until he sits. “She walks you to one of the fallen slabs of stone, overgrown with moss and vines, and guides you down,” he murmurs, and when he speaks, it is once again as the nymph. “I don’t want you to leave. I am certain that you keep good company, but I would prefer to keep you alone with me for a while. Will you rest with me, good sir?” she asks.

 

“You better fuckin’ believe it,” Travis rumbles, expecting Matt to break character with laughter, but all he does is smirk as he looks down at Travis with the air of one laying down a royal flush.

 

“She smiles at you,” he offers in his own voice, glee shining through, “and then without hesitation, she moves closer.”

 

And he does just that. Travis damn near swallows his own tongue as Matt spreads his legs and straddles him, dropping into his lap with his arms snaking around his neck. He wriggles atop him deliberately, moving forward until there is barely an inch of space between the two of them as Travis stares up at him in wide-eyed astonishment, frozen in place as his heart hammers in his chest. “There,” Matt murmurs, shifting with his ass over Travis’ thighs and leaning closer to press their hips together, flooding Travis with heat as his cock stirs beneath Matt. “Now isn’t that much better?”

 

“Let me clarify one point,” Travis manages, his voice strangled as he gapes up at Matt. His arms hover uselessly in the air, uncertain of where he’s allowed to touch as shock and heat twine together and thrum through him. “You said she was _naked_?”

 

“I did,” Matt grins in return, ever-so-smugly. He shifts atop him once more, pointedly inching closer in a way which spreads his legs even further, and Travis finds it impossible to stifle his groan as Matt rocks against his _fucking dick_. “She’s climbed on top of you wearing not a stitch, and she’s being completely shameless as she settles comfortably against you.”

 

Travis’ brain is freewheeling. His friend, his smart, witty, _handsome as hell_ friend is sitting with his ass pressed over his cock. It’s kind of hilarious, or at least, it will be later; when Travis has had time to learn to breathe again, and has sunk at least another three mimosas into him, and has dragged Laura away to their bedroom to have a panicked, flaily conversation about it, _then_ it’ll be funny. Still embarrassing, sure, but that has never stopped Travis from seeing the humour in situations. Even ones he ends up jerking off to.

 

Matt shifts again, arching his back and pointing his toes on the floor to rock against Travis’ crotch. It can’t possibly be innocent; there’s no way Matt has missed the way his dick is stirring with interest beneath him, not when he’s pressed himself up against it, and Travis is pretty fucking certain that the nymph is not the one behaving this way. Travis can feel a scarlet flush spreading up his cheeks as he stares up at Matt, who smirks in return. 

 

“You’re fuckin’ devious. You know that, right?” Travis scrapes out, corralling his thoughts at last. His voice is low, and warm, and entirely his own. 

 

Matt smiles, a flush colouring his own cheeks. Travis’ eyes trace over the freckles on his nose, mapping the constellations while he can. “Of course I do,” Matt murmurs, a teasing note to his words as he gazes down at Travis with an indulgent look. “You’re just so easy.” He clears his throat and, mercifully, backs away a little; it’s only a few inches, but the pressure on Travis’ growing dick eases, and he manages to relax. He rests his hands on his lap, cupping them self-consciously over the bulge in his jeans, and pointedly coughs to encourage him to continue as Matt chuckles.

 

“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” he laughs softly. He clears his throat, and the nymph’s lighter tone returns. “Have I done something wrong?” Matt asks innocently, and Travis seizes the question like the lifeline it is.

 

“It’s not that I’m not flattered, or… or comfortable, I just… I don’t even know your name!” Travis protests, clinging gratefully to Grog’s confusion to muddle his way through this. It’s got him this far; best to just run with it in the moment, and privately fill Laura in on precisely how scheming their DM can be, just to see her delight. Besides, Grog would never refuse the attentions of a beautiful, naked woman. Perhaps Travis can borrow some of his confidence, just for a little while.

 

Matt hesitates, looking away from him as he bites his lower lip pensively. Travis concentrates on trying to slow his breathing as his eyes are drawn helplessly to his mouth, his own lips parting instinctively. “You don’t, and for that you must forgive me my manners,” Matt murmurs eventually, ducking his head to look at Travis through his lashes. “But there is power in a name, and most in the Feywild would not give it away freely. But I feel as though I should trust you,” he says speculatively, as though the words feel foreign to his tongue. 

 

“You can def’nitely trust me,” Travis blusters. “I’m one of the _SHITs_!”

 

Silence falls. Matt lowers his head to try to hide his smile, before mustering up a stoic expression. “I see,” he says lightly. “I’m… sure that’s very impressive, but I’m afraid tales of your heroism are yet to cross the planes.”

 

“It prob’ly won’t be long ‘til they do,” Travis assures her, summoning a proud grin. “And when they do, you can tell everyone you know that you met Grog! That’s me,” he adds, pointing a thumb at himself helpfully. “Grog Strongjaw.”

 

“Grog Strongjaw,” Matt echoes, and Travis finds himself shivering, as though a spell had been cast over him. “You are so free with your name. Then… then you may call me Nahla.”

 

“Nahla,” Travis mumbles; he’s very, very bad at remembering the names of the various characters Matt creates. One hand strains to reach the pad of paper he dropped on the kitchen table, but it’s too far to grasp. Oh, well; he’s sure he’ll recall it later. “I am honoured to meet you, my lady,” he adds as an afterthought, hesitancy creeping into his voice as he scrabbles for an approximation of what he thinks Scanlan might summon up in this situation. Scanlan, he’s decided, is Grog’s number-one reference in situations requiring charm. “Your pond is… lovely.”

 

“Thank you, Grog,” Matt says dryly. “And yet I’m certain you did not travel the planes for sightseeing,” he suggests, resting his hands on Travis’ shoulders to brace himself against them as he gives him a quizzical look. Travis sucks in a startled breath at the weight of Matt hovering above him, and has to tilt his head back to meet his gaze. He’s not accustomed to feeling small, or vulnerable, but Matt pressed above him has him reeling, and his hands on him feel like a brand through his shirt. “I feel the touch of fate on our meeting, sir. Tell me; why did you seek me out?”

 

“It’s for a magic thing,” Travis says vaguely, distracted by the bobbing of Matt’s throat as he swallows. He chastises himself as Matt smirks, and clears his throat in the hopes of clearing his mind. “Er, that is, I… I’ve been cursed. It’s some of that necromancy lark. I don’t understand it, m’self, but they… they say I need your help,” he finishes in a low rumble, allowing beseeching eyes to meet Matt’s. He lifts a hand from his lap to gently wrap it around Matt’s wrist as he leans against his shoulder, clinging hopefully.

 

Matt produces an uncertain smile. “My help?” he echoes.

 

“Your help. Your… your heart?” Travis mumbles, and god, it had sounded so easy when he’d thought he would be killing some monster. Grog is _good_ at that. Find a nymph and take its heart? Child’s play! But this… he looks into Matt’s eyes and feels his stomach sink as certainty settles in it. He can’t do this. “But I… I don’t want to hurt you,” he mumbles. “Honest, Nahla, I… I won’t do nothing bad to you. I don’t want that.”

 

“Don’t want what?” asks Matt. Travis swallows, using his free hand to mime striking a blow.

 

“Nothing bad,” he manages. Matt lets the silence stretch out, and Travis buckles under the force of it. “I don’t wanna, like… rip your heart out, or nothing,” he explains reluctantly, cringing at the image of it. “Don’t get me wrong, that kind of thing is what I’m best at, usually. But I don’t wanna hurt you. Not _you_. That wouldn’t be right.”

 

“Oh?” Matt breathes, looking down at the hand on his wrist before he raises clouded eyes to Travis. “But if you need my heart… then that must mean your own life is nearing its end.”

 

“I s’pose it does,” Travis agrees in a low rumble. He sighs in the silence, then summons up a half-hearted grin. “But there’s prob’ly another way, right? This magic stuff, it can do all sorts. Prob’ly I just need Pike an’ Scanlan an’ Kiki to have another think about it.”

 

“And if there’s no other way?” Matt insists, leaning closer with an earnest gaze. “If your refusing to kill me means that you pass on?”

 

“Then I fuckin’ pass on,” Travis says immediately, meeting his gaze levelly. “I’ll die, yeah, but you won’t. That’ll be right.”

 

There is a long pause. They stare at each other, eyes fixed, before Matt nods slowly, and a sweet smile blooms on his lips. “I believe you,” he says softly. “So many have come before you, swinging blades and trying to take that which they do not deserve… and yet you refuse it without even asking,” he breathes. His hand turns beneath Travis’ to tangle their fingers together, and Travis’ heart pounds in his ears at the contact. “Without even knowing that I could give my heart freely, without a moment of pain, should I wish to give it.”

 

“What?” Travis asks, frowning in confusion. “But it’s… it’s a heart! That’s usually not a thing you can keep goin’ without,” he offers, with the air of confidence that comes from having killed more than his fair share of creatures. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

 

“Perhaps I am not a usual person,” Matt counters with a warm grin. He sits up atop Travis, centering himself over his thighs in an act of mercy, and squeezes his hand tightly. “I can do this for you, Grog Strongjaw. I choose to do it, _because_ you would not ask it of me.” Matt takes his hand back, and when he speaks again, his voice is his own. “She gives you a beatific smile,” he murmurs. “And then you watch as her hands move in a complicated blur, almost seemingly passing through themselves impossibly as they trace a complicated sigil on her chest, and then… you watch, mouth gaping open in disbelief, as she reaches _into_ her chest with a deep sigh, one hand passing through solid flesh with a push, and you see her shiver as she _grasps_ something… and when her hand withdraws, you see within her slender fingers a deep red, perfectly formed, ruby.”

 

Matt reaches out to take Travis’ hand once again, opening his fingers with an encouraging smile, and presses their hands together. He closes Travis’ hand with both of his own, fingers wrapped around his, before he ducks closer to press a kiss to his knuckles. “For you,” he says, his voice once again Nahla’s. “I believe your life is worth saving, Grog. I would not be the cause of your death.”

 

“You honour me,” Travis manages, something close to stunned with this act. “You didn’t have to…”

 

“I know,” he breathes in return. “Believe me, I have refused many others. But you feel different, to me. You have shown me sweetness. Such things are rare, and deserve reward. And I rather like you,” he adds with a laugh.

 

Travis beams in return. “Fanks. I like you too,” he grins, and somehow, it is as though his words break a spell. Nahla vanishes, and in her place sits Matt, laughing softly at Grog’s attempts at charm. 

 

Matt gives him a fond look, and shuffles awkwardly backwards from his lap. He stands, fussily arranging his shirt as he gives the floor a long, studious look. Travis suspects he’s hoping the hanging curtain of his hair will hide his self-conscious flush. “With that,” Matt says, once he can force his eyes to leave the floor, “Nahla takes her leave of you. You watch as she walks away from you, the water of the pond barely stirring as she is encased further in its obsidian depths with every step. Finally, before she vanishes entirely, she turns to smile at you, and you watch as she blows a kiss - ” he mimes it, and grins as Travis pretends to catch it “ - and then she is gone.”

 

“And I stand up from the rock,” Travis adds, then arches an eyebrow and says pointedly, “and rearrange the obvious signs of my happiness with her presence on my lap, and I return to my friends.”

 

“Yeah, I – sorry about that,” Matt laughs, ducking his head once again. He leans against the counter as he watches Travis return the chair to the table. “It just seemed like something she would do, and…”

 

Travis bites. The air between them is thrumming with heat, and he can’t find it within him to douse it. “And?” he murmurs, his voice a low growl.

 

“And… I must admit that it’s something I’ve pictured myself doing for a good while now,” Matt adds, his blithe, casual tone betrayed by the pink blush staining his cheeks. Travis stares at him as bubbles of excitement surge through his belly and up into his chest, leaving him feeling light enough to float right into the air as he watches Matt stride purposefully towards him.

 

“It is?” is all he manages to ask, wrangling his tongue to get with the programme as disbelief and rising hope battle. Matt scoffs, and pauses mere inches away from him.

 

“You’re goddamn right it is,” he murmurs. “Only every time I fuckin’ see you. I hope you don’t think you’ve been subtle?” he asks, an eyebrow arching as he smirks at Travis, who laughs in surprise.

 

“I had kind of hoped you hadn’t noticed that I’m fuckin’ head over heels for you, sure,” he admits, one hand running sheepishly through his hair, before he shrugs, and grins. “But I’m very aware that subtlety isn’t my strong point.”

 

“Subtlety isn’t everything,” Matt says dismissively. His smirk morphs into something softer. “Hey, Travis?”

 

“Yeah?” he says, helpless not to respond.

 

“Nahla’s words might be mine, but they don’t necessarily speak for me,” Matt says, his gaze earnest, fixed on Travis’ eyes. “I’m _definitely_ interested your companions. But… yeah, you interest me, too,” he murmurs, his eyes dropping to Travis’ mouth.

 

Travis inhales sharply, his eyes widening, and one hand rises to cup Matt’s cheek before he forces himself to stop. “Marisha?” he asks gently. 

 

“Cool with whatever,” Matt says immediately, and Travis watches the blush suffuse his cheeks as Matt shrugs. “We have, uh… I guess you could call it an arrangement. We’ve, uh… discussed…”

 

“Yeah?” Travis asks, well aware that he’s teasing as he moves in closer but stills himself just millimetres from kissing him. He nuzzles his nose against Matt’s, amused by the impatient huff it teases from him. “What’ve you discussed, hmm?”

 

“ _You_ ,” Matt breathes, and closes the gap between them with a surge. He plasters himself against Travis once more, winding a hand around his neck as he rises onto his toes and presses their lips together. Travis remains frozen in stunned disbelief for a second, long enough that Matt tries to pull away, and the hungry noise of refusal that escapes Travis seems to startle Matt. Travis winds a hand into his hair and pulls him closer, one hand steadying at his hip as Travis kisses him in return, joy bursting in his chest as Matt sighs and opens up to him.

 

They’re both panting softly by the time they pull apart. Travis is bouncing on the balls of his feet and grinning, huge and giddy, and Matt cracks up at the sight of him. “Well, you’re good for the ego, I’ll say that much,” he laughs. He arches an eyebrow at him, and smirks, “If you’re this keyed up about a kiss, precisely how excited are you going to be when I take you to bed?”

 

“Holy shit, Matt, you’re going to fuckin’ kill me,” Travis breathes, and drags him into another kiss, because he _can_. Matt laughs against him, the sound eventually swallowed as their lips meet and move together until breath runs out.

 

“Okay. All right. I will absolutely make it my business to, as you say, fuckin’ kill you,” Matt says, a broad smile firmly in place as he fills his lungs. But he steps back, straightening his hair as he gives Travis an apologetic look. “But it can’t be right now, much as I would love that, because we’re meant to be playing dungeons and dragons at this very moment.”

 

“Right, right, we’re in the middle of a game, right,” Travis parrots. He sighs, but it can’t stop the grin he’s wearing as he fusses with his mussed hair. “Will you forgive me if I seem to have thoughts straying elsewhere while we play?”

 

“I will,” Matt promises, though another smirk spreads across his face. “But don’t try my patience more than once.” The grin Travis produces has him laughing again. He watches Travis gather his items off the table, then heads for the door. “What are you gonna tell them we were doing?” he asks, taking hold of the handle but not opening it. 

 

Travis smiles sheepishly. “I mean, I’m gonna tell Laura everything, if that’s okay?” he asks. “She knows about… well. She sees through me even better than you can, so she figured out my shit forever ago. Everyone else… I mean, we can tell them, if you want, but it seems kinda - ”

 

“ – not about that!” Matt interrupts with a laugh, though there’s a wild look in his eyes. “I mean, same, I’ll tell Marisha when we’re home, in _great_ detail, but – I _meant_ , what’re you going to tell them _Grog_ was doing?”

 

“Oh. Oh!” Travis blusters, belatedly remembering the entire reason behind their jaunt into the kitchen, before grinning wickedly. “Well that’s easy. Nothing.”

 

“What?” Matt blinks. “Really? Nothing?”

 

“I mean, I’ll tell ‘em I’ve got the heart,” Travis allows. “And that I met a nymph. They don’t _need_ to know more than that, really, do they? Any conclusions they jump to if I tell ‘em she just _gave_ it to me, because she liked me, well, that’s just gonna be a lot of fun for me and you, don’t you think?”

 

Matt stares at him in something close to admiration. “You’re fuckin’ evil,” he breathes.

 

“Nah, it’s not _evil_ ,” Travis counters, waggling his eyebrows. He grins, and takes the opportunity to lean close to Matt and press a quick kiss to his lips, phantom light and over before Matt has a chance to return it. “I just learned how good it feels to tease people tonight. Somebody did their best to teach me that,” he murmurs, smiling as Matt huffs a laugh.

 

“Travis, buddy,” he sighs, before shaking his head. He turns to go before offering one last filthy smile over his shoulder, his eyes full of promise. “If you think _that_ was my best, then man, you’ve got a lot of learning ahead of you.”

 

He’s gone in a flash, the kitchen door left swinging shut behind him as Travis gapes at nothing. It takes him a moment to gather his screaming brain cells back into order, then he smiles wickedly, and heads out the door. 

 

He never does get around to writing down Nahla’s name, not even when Matt approaches him for another one-on-one the next day. And by then he’s much too busy groaning Matt’s name to remember hers.


End file.
